


his current pulls you under

by stereokem



Series: no favors from dead men [2]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Aftermath, Aggression, Ambiguous Pairings - Freeform, Anger, Canonical Character Death, Depression, Eggsy has trouble coping, Grief, Harry is NOT alive, Heavy Angst, I've named Merlin, Implied Relationships, M/M, Merlin | Eoghan Sheehy, Minor Violence, Multi, Rating will go up, Reckless Behavior, Risk-Taking Behavior, Supermassive Black Angst, Tension, obligatory angst fic, some one-sided, some only hinted at, there are several relationships all interconnected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3964153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereokem/pseuds/stereokem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pull of the dead on the conscience of the living is curiously strong. Eggsy and Eoghan must navigate these waters carefully, waters which may seem ominously calm, with violent undercurrents.</p><p>---</p><p>“I want you to speak to a counsellor.”</p><p>There was a snort from behind him. “Like fuck.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I’ve promoted him to Arthur, I had to give Mark Strong’s character a name (even though this choice will probably be irrelevant when the sequel comes in). I’ve seen a few other fics where Merlin’s been named, but none of them really felt right to me, so I decided to formulate a new one. Eoghan is pronounced (as best as I can manage) “yO-in” or “O-in”. I chose it for its Irish origins (in compliance with Mr. Strong's affected accent in the movie), and because it seemed just exotic enough for Mark Strong. . . .
> 
> IMPORTANT: Same 'verse as "a dram each of scotch and sorrow". You don't necessarily _have_ to read that first to get this, but it will put you in the mindset more.

            _(“We can’t. It isn’t safe anymore.”)_

**(-KM-)**

 

            “This is not a conversation I want to be having with you, Galahad.”

            He was standing before one of the tall windows of the austere, almost Edwardian office he had inherited. His hands were clasped firmly behind his back, and his grave eyes were scanning the emerald sea that was the lawn of Kingsman headquarters. He enjoyed this view, found it tranquilizing; he often found himself looking out this window when presented with a particularly troubling problem.

            Such as the one sitting in the chair across from his broad desk.

            “Well, tha’ makes two’v us, then.”

            He let his eyes flutter closed briefly. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply through his nose, taking in the various faint scents of the room: cold tea from the cup and saucer upon his desk; the aroma of the desk’s dark polish, piney and acrid from the binding of the polyeruthane with the wood; his own cologne, the same one he’s worn for nearly a decade because someone once told him it suited him, and he had thence never put much consideration into deviating; and, arching over everything, the almost tangy odor of gunpowder, barely masking the scent of a small but fresh wound.

            He released his breath, the air curling out of his nostrils in a slow, controlled stream. His eyes opened and he looked once more up at the window, gaze fixating on the white Kingsman insignia in the middle of the green.

            “I want you to speak to a counsellor.”

            There was a snort from behind him. “Like fuck.”

            At the candidly delivered expletive, the man previously known only as Merlin did then turn around, keeping his hands clasped behind his back. He surveyed the young man sitting across from him, face almost entirely devoid of expression. It was this same eerie stoicism that he used when conducting meetings as Arthur, when assessing threats and making the difficult executive decisions that his new position required of him: it was a mien comprised only of logic, so cold and unblinking it was nearly inhuman.

            He had been told that it made people uncomfortable.

            But the young agent slumped over in the stiff-backed leather chair on the other side of his wide desk betrayed no uneasiness. He simply stared back at his superior petulantly, defiantly, green eyes glittering behind smudged glasses and an errant strand of hair that was falling over his face. There was a powder-burn on his left cheek and a cut that went through his right eyebrow, taped up but still oozing.

            Arthur—Eoghan— stared for a moment at the wound; his expression all but retained its eerie neutrality save for a single muscle at the corner of his severe mouth, which twitched.

            “You forget yourself, Galahad.”

            Eggsy narrowed his eyes, a small, mean smirk playing at the corner of his bruised mouth. “Is tha’ what you fink, eh?”

            Carefully, Eoghan unfastened his hands from behind him in order to tap his desk with the tip of one long finger. “I do.”

            “Well, pardon me, _Arthur_ ,” came the reply, irreverential emphasis placed upon his title. “Or do you prefer ‘Your Majesty’?”

            Eoghan saw the bait, dangling bawdily in front of his face. He just barely refrained from raising an eyebrow.  _Really._

            “Stop it.” 

            Eggsy’s unkind smirk made another scanty appearance at the corner of his mouth. He reached up with one blood-speckled hand and pulled at the Windsor knot on his tie, loosening it from around his neck. As he did so, Eoghan could see the beginnings of a set of bruises, small and intimate like fingertips. “Stop what?” Eggsy asked, none too innocently.

            Eoghan shifted his gaze away from Eggsy, back to the hand he had placed upon his desk. He chose not to answer, and instead slid himself carefully into his desk chair, letting go of an almost-weary exhalation. He ran a hand down the front of his suit, smoothing out imaginary creases and thinking of the soft, simple cardigans he wore in his previous position. The role of Arthur required him to be always formal, always in costume; the viciously tailored suits made him look more dangerous, shark-like, accentuating the sharp edges that his sweaters used to hide. He was slowly becoming attenuated with letting his serrated teeth show.

            And people treated him differently. A man in an unassuming cardigan was useful, but a man in a bespoke suit was powerful, to be obeyed. He now garnered respect from all corners of Kingsman.

            (Well. Almost all.)

            Picking up a memo from the left corner of his desk and scanning it disinterestedly, Eoghan spoke deliberately, carefully. “You will be glad to know that Lancelot is in stable condition. I’ve spoken to her doctors. They tell me she will make a full recovery.”

            Eggsy said nothing. Eoghan slid his glance over the top of the memorandum; he was privately, perversely pleased with the expression on the young man’s face. He looked as though he had been freshly slapped.

            “It isn’t the first time an agent has put a fellow Kingsman in hospital,” Eoghan continued slowly, watching the subtle contortions of Eggsy’s expression. “However, it is unfortunate that Roxy’s injuries are resultant of your _ineptitude_.”

            The last word slid out slow and poisonous, and its effect on the young agent was visible in the vein that jumped in his neck and the way his eyes widened with both incredulity and anger.

            “ _Excuse_ me?”

            Eoghan replied in a tone that was much too mild a match for the growing animus in Eggsy’s voice. “No, I shan’t. You have been sloppy, Galahad. When the agency agreed to let you fill—” (he paused, and it was only for a second, for a breath that could mean nothing or anything) “ **—** Harry’s shoes, I saw no reason to object. You had proven yourself, your capability and loyalty. I thought you would make a good agent. Evidently, I was wrong.”

            Eggsy shifted and righted himself in the chair, glowering at Eoghan with an expression that was just this side of murderous. When he spoke, his voice was shaking with rage. “So you want me ta see a _fucking_ _shrink_ ‘cause you ‘fink I’m a lousy Kingsman, tha’ it?”

            In that moment, when the energy of the room was inciting him to raise his voice, to retaliate to Eggsy’s language with choice words of his own—in that moment, Eoghan let everything within and around him go completely still. The silence that filled the room was his, and the entirety of its weight was concentrated in the shiny black pupils of his dark, unnerving eyes.

            He blinked once. Slowly. 

            “I want you to do it," he said quietly, "because it has been three months, Eggsy.” He swallowed, striving to keep his intonations low, almost soothing. “We . . . burned him. He is not coming back.”

            It was Eggsy’s turn to hold the silence now; but he couldn’t. It slipped from his hands and fell like a cross to the floor.

            “Fuck you.”

            And that was not meant to sound broken, surely, not half so broken as it did. Eggsy’s voice just barely escaped cracking, and the furious energy he had been radiating a moment before dwindled into something sluggish and black.

            Eoghan took another practiced breath, slowly in and out, lingering in this personal, subliminal sigh. Picking up his tablet from where it lay on his desk, he diverted his gaze from Eggsy and onto the blue-lit screen. “Let’s not, shall we?” he said smoothly as he tapped the screen, selecting a contact and beginning to compose a memo. Without looking up, he continued in a stronger voice: “I’m making an appointment with you for our on-base psychologist, Dr. Hedonshire. You will go. Or you will be suspended.”

            In his periphery, Eoghan saw the sudden movement that was Eggsy rising abruptly from his chair, and heard the accompanying screech of the chair legs across his office floor. He did not look up as Eggsy gave him one last glare and turned heel, marching angrily towards the office door; he did, however, call after him, voice as mild as summer rain. 

            “Oh, and Eggsy.”

            The young man halted just as he had wrenched open the door. Though he stopped he kept his stiff back to Eoghan, refusing to look at him or speak.

            Eoghan thought carefully about his next line of email, and then continued in the same mellow tone:  “I know that you have been making a habit of late, but I must instruct you not to go back to the flat.”

            (Though he had been the one to speak them, something uncomfortable settled in his gut at those words. The flat. _His_ flat. The empty flat. The flat that had gone undisturbed for two months before Kingsman had removed all personal items, locked them up in storage unit in some godforsaken corner of England. The flat that, despite its emptiness, Eggsy kept haunting like an especially well-tailored ghost.)

            “Why?”

            Eoghan did look up then, and even from where he was sitting, he could see that Eggsy’s knuckles on the door handle were bone-white.

            “It is being repurposed.”

            The sound of the door slamming behind him was deafening, and seemed to echo throughout the office for the rest of the afternoon.

**(-KM-)**

 

            _(“It was never safe for us.”)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is me trying to do a whole lot of "showing, not telling", so I haven't made things (i.e. relationships, circumstances) explicitly clear. I want you to wonder, theorize. I was hesitant to put any pairings, not because they don't exist, but because they aren't concrete.
> 
> Also: this underwent several rewrites (after originally being too long and convoluted). Let me know what you think.
> 
> Update: this chapter has been edited. 5.19.15


	2. Chapter 2

_(“Did you know that a person can drown in only a teaspoon of water?”)_

**(-KM-)**

            He was standing again at the tall window of his office, looking out across the grounds. A slight drizzle had started up earlier that afternoon, and it was still persevering steadily. The sky beckoned stronger gales, the clouds dark gray and frothy; they blocked out the sunlight so that the ordinarily emerald lawn was now a dark forest green. Flecks of rain clung to the thick glass, distorting his view.

            It was almost three in the afternoon; he had been awake for nearly forty-eight hours—not a record, by any standard, but he was no longer a field agent, and his exhaustion was beginning to take its toll. Beneath the steel grey of his suit, his shoulders felt tight, and his eyes ached behind his glasses.

            Because he was alone, he allowed himself a moment’s repose. He bowed his head and brought a hand up to his face, letting his brow rest against his hand. He took in a deep, calming breath and released it just as slowly. He could smell himself, the slightly unpleasant muskiness that resulted from a perfunctory washing-up as opposed to a proper shower; his cologne, applied a day ago, was almost completely faded out, only the faintest whisper of its odor still clinging to his skin. In the air, too, was the faint scent of limonene, from whatever cleaning agent had been applied to the furniture in his office while he was out. He could smell the burnt tang of old coffee from the mug sitting on his desk, perhaps an ounce gathered in a stagnant black pool at the bottom, his secretary having not refreshed it since around noon. As soon as the extraction team had given him the all-clear, that the agent was secure and they were heading back to HQ, Eoghan had finally left the control room and returned to his office. He told his secretary to cancel his appointments for the afternoon, and not to disturb him. There was only one person he was willing to see.

            Though “willing” was being very generous.

            Since their last tete-a-tete only a brief while ago, Eggsy had more or less avoided him. This suited Eoghan well enough: in all honesty, he had plenty to be concerned with without also looking after the well-being of the agency’s second youngest asset. He had received a report from Dr. Hedonshire indicating that Eggsy had indeed at least the courtesy to go to the appointment; the report itself was none too revealing. _Anger management issues_ was the vague language. _Grief counseling may be required_. More drivel, more not-news. He had signed off on Hedonshire’s request to schedule further counseling, and set the matter aside.

            He had been hesitant to dole out any assignments to Galahad of late. However, with Lancelot still recovering from injuries sustained during her last mission, and the rest of the Knights being out on assignment, he had no choice but to put Galahad on this mission. He watched his secretary carry the directive out of his office in a manila folder with thoughts that bordered on prayer; but they were desultory, and they evaporated in the thickness of his mind.

            Four days later, when Merlin—a dark-eyed young woman named Audra— informed him (in more eloquent terms) that the assignment had gone tits up, Eoghan could not even say that he was surprised.

            He had considered her quietly, mouth pressing together in a thin line. His silence was lengthy, but she had barely moved, keeping her gaze fixed on him as he considered one of the portraits in his office; a full minute must have passed before he spoke again, requesting that she send Galahad to his office once he had returned.

            Merlin had simply nodded once, and informed him that Galahad would report to him as soon as he had been seen by medical.

            Thus, here he was: standing by his window, looking out over the rain-sodden grounds and silently blaspheming the name of one of many dead men he knew.

             _Damn you, Harry._

            From behind him, there was a knock at the door.

            At the noise, Eoghan felt his pulse skip and the fingers of his right hand twitched. He kept his cool, dark eyes trained on the washed-out landscape before him.

            “Come in.”

            There was the soft, almost inaudible sound of his door swinging on its hinges; then the slightly more distinct sound of someone walking across the room, a limp just perceptible in an otherwise controlled amble.

            The footsteps stopped just behind him.

            “Sit.”

            Chair legs dragged against the hardwood; there was a thwump as someone sat heavily in said chair, and then a long-suffering sigh. After that, more silence.

            Eoghan pressed his lips together, closing his eyes. He had rehearsed this, what he was going to say and how he would deliver it; but now that he had come to this moment, he was at a loss for words. So instead he breathed in, slowly, deeply, taking in once more the scents of his office: limonene, cold coffee . . . and, added to that, sweat, iron, and the unmistakable smell of antiseptic.

            The rain, roused from its previous drizzle, beat a little harder on the window.

            From behind him came another sigh.

            “Look, if you’re just gonna give me the silent treatment, then I—“”

            _“Shut up.”_

            The silence that followed that command was deafening.

            When Eoghan turned around to finally face Eggsy, the muscles of his face were relaxed and neutral. His eyes, however, were hard and sharp, glinting like flints.

            Eggsy’s face was pale and twitchy. He was dressed in half of a Kingsman suit, slacks and white-shirt, but no jacket; the shirt was slightly open, bloody on one side, and through the rips of the fabric Eoghan could spy a dressing that was just beginning to seep red. There was another wound at the junction of shoulder and neck where a bullet had grazed the top layer of flesh. The blood there had already coagulated and was beginning to form a dark black scab.

            Eggsy’s expression was one of stubborn wariness: his jaw was set, and his green eyes were narrowed in suspicion. But, for a wonder, he was silent, watching Eoghan to determine his next move.  
            Eoghan swallowed, feeling something heavy at the back of his throat, something like a scream.

            “I am suspending you.”

            His voice was smooth when it departed his vocal cords, held none of the sudden anger that his previous words had. It was relieving.

            It must have been relieving to Eggsy as well, because he seemed not at all affected by this statement. He simply shrugged one shoulder, the one on the opposite side of his bullet-wound. “That’s fine, doc said this wouldn’t be healed up for a few wee—”

“I am suspending you _indefinitely_.”

            It was that formidable addendum, apparently, that finally forced his words to sink in. Eggsy’s face went through a series of quick contortions, from confusion to comprehension to incredulity, and then finally to quiet outrage. He sat up in his chair.

            “What? You can’t do that.” He shook his head, as if trying to convince himself. “You can’t _afford_ to do that.”

            He heard the disbelief plainly in Eggsy’s voice—the boy wasn’t trying to hide it. He had been surprised, thrown off balance; Eoghan had the upper hand now. That thought should have made the older agent feel more secure; but there was a hot prickling beneath his skin, and it was something he couldn’t shake off.

            “I can and will do whatever is necessary,” he replied, sounding a far cry more calm than he felt. “And, right now, you are not necessary.”

            He could see immediately the effect that those words had upon the young agent. Hurt flickered across his face, but was quickly replaced once again with outrage, which increased tenfold. He swallowed thickly, and his voice, when he spoke next, was heavy with anger:

            “Explain.”

            The scoff escaped Eoghan before he had the chance to restrain himself. “Let’s not pretend that I should have to.”

            Eggsy folded his arms, lifting his chin slightly. “I’d like to hear it all the same.”

            It was the sort of tone the class trouble-maker would use to back-talk a teacher, the voice of a child who thought he knew more than his masters. Eoghan wondered if Eggsy had ever addressed Harry like this. How Harry had responded. Had he—

            Abruptly, he caught himself, halting his train of thought. No.

            Eoghan reached up to his face, adjusting his glasses. He did not lower his chin to more easily look Eggsy in the face, instead staring down his nose at the young man.

            “You are _reckless_ , Eggsy.” His voice was cold, but with a serrated edge of spite buried underneath. “You take uncalculated risks. You dismiss express orders. You have no noticeable regard for your safety or the safety of others. I will not tolerate that from anyone, but especially not from you.”

            The accusations were heavy. He had almost expected Eggsy to attempt to deny them; but the younger man said nothing in regards to the faults laid down before him—and it was, somehow, markedly worse. Eggsy simply leaned forward, betraying only a slight wince when doing so put pressure on his wound.

            “Why me especially?”

            And there was no contrition in his voice, none at all. There was only challenge, a fierce and misguided tenacity showing brightly in Eggsy’s green eyes.

            In a calculated gesture, Eoghan placed one hand atop the smooth surface of his desk, just his fingertips touching the dark wood. It was a grounding move, meant to anchor him to the spot—to anchor his anger.

            Because he _was_ angry. There was no denying that.

            It had always been a problem for him. In grammar school. In university. Anger instead of sadness, instead of loneliness, instead of fear. Like most things, it had worked until it hadn't. Until he had been left with so much anger that it was suffocating him. He’d had so much rage, had collected it in his veins without means of controlling it. Kingsman had given him that control, and it was like a balm; he had learned how to harness it, deplete it, let himself exist in an almost eerie state of calm.

            But now, there was no one to coach him through it. There was no hand on his shoulder to steady him, no calm words close to his ear.

            He had forgotten until that moment how thick and vast his anger was. It seemed to him that he was drowning in it.

            Looking down at his fingertips where they touch the desk, Eoghan swallowed thickly and shook out the leather reigns of his self-control. When he spoke it was slow, almost idle:

            “As the proctor for your training and testing, it was my job to remain impartial about all candidates. The same is not so for the agent by whom the candidate was proposed. I informed Harry that you were emotionally the least suitable candidate; he seemed to think you would grow out of that. I always wondered what made him so sure.”

            And it was cruel; but cruelty was cold, and he needed that now more than anything. He needed something to temper the raw emotion bubbling under his skin, and how dare this child elicit such a response from him--

            “Don’t.”

            Eoghan paused, looking up. Eggsy was glaring at him—that is, he had been glaring before; but there was something distinctly different in the shape of his supple mouth now, a furrow to his brow not wholly realized before.

            The corner of Eoghan’s own mouth twitched, and it was unclear even to him whether or not it was to smirk or snarl.

            “Don’t what? Mention Harry?” the words dripped venomously from his mouth, feeling filthy and sacrilegious even to him. _No. No, what am I doing?_   “I shouldn’t have to, should I? I should not have to mention the man that gave you a chance to accomplish something with your life and who died doing what he thought was necessary. I should not have to tell you that your actions as of late are truly poor repayment for everything he did for you. Yet here we are.”

            There was a satisfying screech of wood-on-wood as Eggsy jerkily rose from his seat. He looked positively livid, a flush creeping up his neck and eyes flashing. “I’m leaving.”

            Eoghan narrowed his eyes. “You will stay.”

            “Ta, but I ‘fink not. Maybe you didn’ notice, but I just got off a jet that lit’rally plucked my arse up out of the middle of hell. I’m fucking tired. I been shot. And you look like shite yourself if that’s not being too _indelicate_ —”

            Eoghan took three steps forward, coming around the side of the desk. His pulse thrummed irregular and hot in his veins, and he was distantly aware that whatever modicum of a cool façade he had been maintaining was slipping fast. “I’ve been up since the mission went sour overseeing damage control,” he informed Eggsy acidly. “As for your injury: _curious_ how you managed to sustain a gunshot wound to the abdomen while wearing a custom-made, bullet-proof suit—”

            “Look, enough! You want to suspend me? Fine. You want me to go back to that shrink? He’s a wanker, but fine. I’ll do all tha’, but I will not sit here and let you berate me like some fucking kid an’ mouth off at me ‘bout stuff you’ve got no fucking clue about, so sod off—”

            Eoghan opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. His tongue, nor anything else in his mouth, seemed to be working. His brain—his very skull—felt like hot oil, liquid and churning dangerously. His vision blurred momentarily, and he blinked.

            Before him, Eggsy had taken an aggressive step forward and he was shouting up into Eoghan’s face, cheeks flushed scarlet and eyes gleaming. “— ever since, ever since it’s been like a bomb about t’ go off and I’m fucking sick of all your sodding tut-tutting— you know, he was the first older bloke tha’ was nice t’ me? Didn’ fucking call me names, or hit me mum, or knock me around. Didn’ ask for nuvin’ when he pulled me out of Metro. Introduced me to all this," he gestured wildly, "chance to get out of a fucked up life. Not often that I get a good thing like tha’. It’s not fucking fair. He fucking _died_ , an' yeah I’m _a bit shot_ about it, an’ forgive me if I can’t be as indifferent about it as _you_ are—”

            Eoghan blinked. There was white behind his eyes.

            In the next instant, he had Eggsy pinned across the desk, one hand squeezing a wrist into the small of his back, the other on his hip, pushing his injured side into the desk edge. Papers fluttered to the floor, and the breath that curled out of Eoghan’s nostrils was hot as steam and his eyes felt like they were burning and he could feel every point that was connecting his body to Eggsy and how he wanted to tear this body to pieces—

            Animus rippling through him, Eoghan stepped in, pinning one of Eggsy’s legs with his own. Eggsy yelled incoherently and writhed, but Eoghan’s grip was unyielding and he leaned heavily across Eggsy’s back to put his lips close to the young man’s ear, delivering his words in a searing whisper:

            “I’m going to say this _once_ , and only _once_ , you arrogant little narcissist,” he hissed against Eggsy’s temple, bodily shoving into him and pressing hard at every point of contact as Eggsy attempted to kick. _“You aren’t the **only one** who lost him.”_

            Eggsy froze immediately at those words, body going rigid. Eoghan could feel his pulse thudding in his wrist beneath his fingertips, and he could hear the shallow panting that was Eggsy’s breath.

            They remained like that for several moments, Eoghan pinning Eggsy down with bruising force, Eggsy helpless and stiff beneath his weight. All around them the office was still, the only sound the quiet patter of the rain at the window.

            Finally, in a small, constricted voice, Eggsy croaked: “Get off.”

            It was as if his sense and reason had flooded back to him. Eoghan found himself releasing Eggsy instantly, almost but not quite leaping backward. He watched with unusual and unsettling trepidation as the young man slowly pushed himself up from the desk, wincing as he placed a hand over the wound that Eoghan had been abusing. Eggsy straightened but kept his back to Eoghan, bracing himself against the desk.

            _God._ Eoghan closed his eyes, almost as if in defeat. Darkness swirled around him, and though he felt like a coward for doing so, he welcomed it. He parted his dry lips and, in a voice that sounded nothing like his own, he said:

             _“Out.”_

            He dared not open them until the door to his office had swung softly shut.

**(-KM-)**

            _(“Of course. Bath’s ready.”)_


End file.
